Thesis: Hollywood Soldier Intelligence Support for SOFTWAR Operations 2010
To what extent can the intelligence community (IC) access reserve and National Guard service members with mass media skills to analyze adversary propaganda in a SOFTWAR Virtual Unit (SVU) construct?
The SVU is a concept developed by information warfare analyst, Chuck de Caro.
De Caro defines SOFTWAR as the hostile use of global television to shape another society’s will by changing its view of reality. De Caro’s vision is that a SOFTWAR plans and operations cell be positioned within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, whose members are reservists with career long skills in television production, advertising and dissemination, and who can perform operationally.
In short, the SVU would analyze and counter adversary multi-media propaganda.
SOFTWAR
De Caro defined SOFTWAR as the hostile use of global television (GTV) to shape another society’s will by changing its view of reality. He stated that the United States Government, military and intelligence community (IC) must adopt this concept because the nature of war is changing – a change, according to de Caro, caused by global television (GTV).
De Caro used the term GTV to describe the electronic dissemination of motion pictures via “televisive” means, including internet, broadcast television and all new media. GTV is powerful because it transfers information to video illiterates – most people believe anything that they view on television. Simply put, the best way to disseminate a message that everyone can understand is through the perception of images. Additionally, de Caro believed that the arrival of GTV has replaced the fine line between diplomacy and warfare, with a large gray zone where the wills of societies can be bent without necessarily resorting to full-scale warfare.
De Caro often referred to Osama bin Laden as an adversary that has approached the information frontier as his main battle. To prove his point, de Caro quoted an intercepted letter from bin Laden to Taliban chief Mullah Omar that stated that bin Laden is placing 90 percent of his effort on information warfare. De Caro argued that this key message revealed that America is fighting the wrong war with al Qaeda. He strongly suggested that the United States’ refusal to adopt SOFTWAR as their main strategy may help explain why, after eight years of trying to kill bin Laden and al Qaeda, the United States military has failed.
De Caro criticized the United States’ insistence on using Cold War legacy systems and the backwards simplistic approach in fighting an asymmetric enemy who has adapted his operations to the infosphere. He stated that Bin Laden is a virtual guerilla whose area of operations is global and four dimensional. Thus, he fights on all elemental fronts – air, land, sea, and information. Bin Laden has also used GTV to greatly magnify the size and scope of his attacks and to create an international cult following based on the amplification of his alleged charisma.
De Caro also mentioned that the United States military operates in a transparent environment because anyone that has access to television uplink, microsat or direct broadcast satellite (DBS) has instantaneous global coverage. If our adversaries have instantaneous global coverage, they are thus a political entity as a result of their audience. GTV provides the emerging powers of low cost, high quality, real-time intelligence on most United States government operations. De Caro explained that our adversaries can discern most United States’ military operations by watching television news channels and gathering information on the internet.
De Caro claimed that United States’ adversaries are paying great attention to the technical attributes of television production. Hence, if the enemy’s propaganda has elements of being produced by media skilled individuals, then the analysis of adversary propaganda must be conducted by analysts that are well versed in television production attributes. De Caro explained that the IC and active duty military do not have enough analysts skilled in this area. Therefore, the solution lies with National Guard and reserve service members who possess media analytical skills due to their civilian occupations in the media field.
SOFTWAR Virtual Unit (SVU)
To propel his idea of adding the fourth dimension, the infosphere, to the United States’ current military strategy, de Caro proposed the creation of the SOFTWAR Virtual Unit (SVU). De Caro explained that the SVU would be comprised of civilians and/or reservists with career long leadership skills in film and television production, multilingual software companies, and marketing and advertising. This team would plan and conduct information operations from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Their mission would entail:
- Researching how GTV could be used against adversaries of the United States;
- Investigating how GTV could resolve conflicts that involve genocide;
- Studying the impact of GTV on operations-other-than-war (OOTW), including peace keeping operations;
- Examining how GTV could dissolve alliances between belligerent virtual nations;
- Developing doctrine and contingency plans for SOFTWAR in political-military operations;
- Implementing proactive counter propaganda measures that pertain to GTV;
- Integrating Cyberwar methods into the United States military structure and strategies.
De Caro explained that members of the SVU will be selected based on the following criteria: media experience, personality, and “intellectual velocity”. Media experience not only pertains to occupations relevant to the television and movie production industry, but also to those in the marketing, advertising, and software development realms. De Caro stated that the “ideal” SVU member would be self organized – able to view a problem, analyze it, and come up with several solutions.
De Caro further described the SVU as being composed of three teams. Each team would have eight members for a total of twenty-four individuals. Furthermore, each team would have eight overlapping specialties: writer, cinema photographer, light technician, sound technician, editor, post production supervisor, dissemination executive and marketing executive. All three teams would analyze the same adversary propaganda for the purpose of intelligence support for SOFTWAR operations.
In addition, de Caro outlined SOFTW AR’s six principles that represent the methodical steps, tactics and fundamentals that the SVU would implement when fighting an adversary in the infosphere battleground:
Counterpropaganda: Assesses the adversary’s propaganda target audience; creates and disseminates propaganda to the same audience, by improving the technical attributes and telegenics so that the viewer can relate to it easier than the adversary’s propaganda.
Counterprogramming: The tactic of broadcasting the complete opposite of an adversary’s programming, with the goal of denying the adversary of market share.
Saturation: The utilization of large scale budgets to out-buy and out-broadcast an adversary. The adversary should be “out broadcasted” by a ratio of three to one.
Seduction: The utilization of commercial counter-demographic techniques to break the effectiveness of enemy broadcasts upon a specific demographic.
Special Means: The use of grey propaganda, black propaganda, novelistic tactics and stratagems to break the enemy’s influence upon a given demographic.
Integration: The most important principle, according to de Caro. It implies the coordination of all SOFTWAR methodologies so as to have maximum impact on all aspects of a target audience. This is of tremendous importance to the United States because it currently has no integrated information warfare effort at the strategic level.
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